KU senior guard Remy Martin ‘tweaked his back’ against Stony Brook, Bill Self reports
Big 12 preseason player of the year Remy Martin didn’t score a single point while playing just 18 minutes in Kansas’ 88-59 victory over Stony Brook on Thursday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
The 6-foot, 180-pound “super senior” transfer from Arizona State, who was 0 for 2 from the field, did snag four rebounds and dish two assists against no turnovers while hampered by a back injury that has plagued him of late.
“Remy didn’t have a very effective game tonight. He tweaked his back. He didn’t want to tell us, but he tweaked his back,” KU coach Bill Self said after the game. “You could see he wasn’t moving very well at all.”
Self explained that Martin “did it the other day. He’s been practicing the last two to three days. I thought he was past that, (but) he tweaked it.”
Martin will have several days to get treatment on his back. The Jayhawks (3-0) will next meet North Texas in a first-round ESPN Events Invitational game on Thanksgiving Day in Kissimmee, Florida, just south of Orlando.
“He’ll be fine,” Self said.
What to do with the starting lineup?
Through three games, Burbank, California native Martin has averaged 9.7 points per game on 38.1% shooting. In all, he’s made 8 of 21 shots and is 2 of 6 on three-pointers. He’s 11 of 12 from the line.
He’s also averaging 5.3 rebounds per game with seven assists total against six turnovers. He has zero steals and has averaged 24.9 minutes per game.
Martin has started all three regular-season games. Self now has a decision to make on the starting lineup.
Forward Jalen Wilson, a starter last season, has served his three-game suspension to open the season. If Wilson starts, one of the five who have started all three games (Martin, Dajuan Harris, Christian Braun, Ochai Agbaji, David McCormack) will have to come off the bench.
“I don’t know if Jalen will start right off the bat,” Self said. “He may not. I don’t know what’s best. I’d tell you this, we’d be a lot better if defensive rebounding is not a key issue, which it could be, I think we’ll be so much better playing faster. Two of those guards and J. Will will let us play faster.
“Jalen is the best we have in transition hands down, pushing the ball, better than Juan (Harris), Remy, Joe (Yesufu), Bobby (Pettiford), whoever. We can play two littles. The other thing we haven’t done yet,” Self added, “is we can play Jalen at the 5 and get really quick depending on how we want to do some things. I think we have some options.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 11:58 PM.
